Ulbricht in October 1956 PDF

Ulbricht in October 1956: Survival of the Spitzbart during Destalinization
Johanna Granville
Copyright: "Ulbricht in October: Survival of the Spitzbart during Destalinization, Journal of Contemporary History 41, no. 3 (2006): 477-502.
Distrust everyone in whom the impulse to punish is powerful! Nietzsches Zarathustra admonished.1 In the 1950s the East German communist satrap Walter Ulbricht and his Hungarian counterpart Mtys Rkosi shared a powerful impulse to punish. Both had spent the second world war in the Soviet Union and were Muscovites. Both were diehard Stalinists who dragged their feet in implementing the reforms dictated by the Twentieth CPSU Congress. And both communist leaders were immensely unpopular. East Germans dubbed Ulbricht Goatbeard (Spitzbart), which, although perhaps not as derogatory as Bald Murderer (Kopasz Gyilkos) and Asshead (Seggfej) for Rkosi, was hardly flattering.2 Yet Ulbricht managed to survive Khrushchevs destalinization and the turbulent events of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, resigning only in 1971, while Rkosi lasted barely five months after the famous Secret Speech and was deported to the Soviet Union in July 1956, where he stayed in permanent exile until his death the same year as Ulbrichts resignation.3 Comparing the East German and Hungarian situations, this article seeks to answer the questions: how exactly did the East German leader
I should like to thank Catherine Epstein, Donna Harsch, Feiwel Kupferberg, Peter Kenez, Peter Pastor, Christian Ostermann, Doug Selvage, Venelin Ganev and Ruud Van Dijk for their helpful comments. 1 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra. Ein Buch fr Alle und Keinen. (Leipzig 1891). For a recent English edition, see Thus Spake Zarathustra. A Book for All and None (New York 2003). 2 Ulrich Burger, Ulbricht, PSUG i Cel De-Al XX-LEA Congres al PCUS A existat o destal-inizare n RDG?, Anii 19541960 Fluxurile i refluxurile stalinismului, Analele Sighnet 8 (Bucharest 2000), 121. Hungarians used these terms only among trusted family and friends, of course. Use of these terms publicly could lead to several years in prison. (Rkosis successor Ern ~ Ger~, who became First Secretary after his patron was deported to the USSR in July 1956, was just as despised. As Hungarians said in the privacy of their kitchens: Instead of a fat Rkosi we got a skinny one.) 3 Rkosi was deported to the Soviet Union on 26 July 1956, living first in Moscow at the Barvikha sanatorium, then Krasnodar, Tokmak (Kirghizia), Arzamas and finally in Gorky, where he died of natural causes on 5 February 1971. As late as May 1957, he still thought that he could return to Hungary, claiming that the revolution had occurred due to his absence from the country. See the letters written in 1957 by Rkosi to the CC CPSU in attempts to return to Hungary, for example, in RGANI (Moscow), f. 89, per 45, dok 67, ll. 19. Pismo Matiasa Rakoshi, Moskva, 15ovo fevralya 1957 g., perevod s vengerskovo. For a recent account of Rkosis years in exile, based on new archival documents, see Valerii L. Musatov, Istoriya odnoi ssylki: Zhitie Matiasa Rakoshi v SSSR (19561971 gg), Kentavr (Moscow), no. 6 (NovemberDecember 1993), 7281.
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Walter Ulbricht survive destalinization in the 1950s and remain in power until 1971?4 How was Ulbricht able to prevent the kind of unrest that occurred in Poland and Hungary? Like Rkosi, Ulbricht had enemies. Karl Schirdewan, an SED Politburo member, strongly opposed Ulbrichts stonewalling after Khrushchevs Secret Speech exposing Stalins crimes. In a Politburo report he prepared for the twenty -ninth SED plenum (1214 November 1956), Schirdewan called for objective problemsolving and an open examination of past mistakes. When Ulbricht criticized his argument and insisted that he rewrite the speech, Schirdewan replied that he did not want to see Ulbricht go the way that Rkosi had.5 The situation in East German enterprises as one communist official in Meien said was like a powderkeg (Pulverfa); one more spark, and the whole thing is going to blow up.6 In 1959 Ulbricht himself said at a party congress in Budapest that he had feared a counter -revolution in 19567 in response to the Hungarian revolution.7 A brief review of recent archival evidence about the response of the East German population to the Hungarian crisis further underscores the puzzle of Ulbrichts long tenure. Calls for Ulbrichts overthrow were recorded through-out October and November, even before the Soviet invasion of Hungary, and grew steadily more menacing.8 On 25 October 1956, comrades in one of the district leaderships (Kreisleitung) reported strong demands, especially among SPD members, for personnel changes similar to those made in Hungary and Poland as a result of the Twentieth Party Congress.9 According to a report written the next day, a citizen in Grlitz said: Those responsible in the GDR
4 Other East European communist leaders managed to survive the events of 1956 (e.g. Enver Hoxha, Antonin Novotny, Todor Zhivkov, et al.), but this study will focus on the comparison of Ulbricht with Mtys Rkosi and Ern~ Ger~. 5 See Karl Schirdewan, Aufstand gegen Ulbricht (Berlin 1995), 109. Karl Schirdewan was a member of the Central Committee of the SED Politburo (19531957), SED Central Committee Secretary for Cadre Questions (195358), and member of the security commission (195457). He was expelled from the Central Committee in February 1958 for factional activity and rehabili-tated in 1990. He wrote two memoirs: Aufstand gegen Ulbricht. Im Kampf um politische Kurskorrektur, gegen stalinistische, dogmatische Politik (Berlin 1994) and Ein Jahrhundert Leben. Erinnerungen und Visionen. Autobiographie (Berlin 1998). One of the best archive-based studies of the Ulbricht regime and those who opposed it published in recent years is Peter Grieders The East German Leadership 19461973 (Manchester and New York 1999). On Schirdewan, see chap. 3, 10859. 6 SAPMO DY/30/IV 2/ 5, 574, #8, p. 57, Kurzinformation ber die Ereignisse in Volkspolen und Ungarn sowie ber erste Argumente zur Lage im vorderen Orient, den 31.10.56. Bei uns in den Betrieben gleicht die Situation einem Pulverfa und es fehlt nur noch ein Funke, dann geht es in die Luft. 7 Carl G. Anton, Stalinist Rule in East Germany, Current History (May 1963), 267. 8 SAPMO DY 301 IV 2/5/574, #5, Kurzinformation zu den Ereignissen in Volkspolen und der Ungarischen Volksrepublik, Berlin, 24.10.1956, 201. Discussions have grown somewhat stronger for similar measures taken in Poland and Hungary. The crux of the comments is espe-cially directed toward the person of comrade Walter Ulbricht. 9 SAPMO DY 30/ IV 2/5, 574, #4, Kurzinformation ber die Ereignisse in Volkspolen und Ungarn, Berlin, den 25.10.1956, 24.
Granville: Ulbricht in October 1956
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have not yet been held accountable, but they wont have to wait long now.10 Stasi informers reported new hostile arguments on 7 November, including: Walter Ulbricht, Otto Grotewohl and Bulganin must hang, as Hitler and Gring.11 Flyers were distributed in the regions (Bezirke) of Schwerin and Dresden during the nights of 79 November, criticizing the party and govern-ment.12 In other regions (Erfurt, Cottbus, Frankfurt, Dresden and Suhl), enemies painted graffiti such as Down with the communists! Down with the SED!13 On 13 November during recess, eighth-graders in Dresden hung up Ulbrichts picture and wrote underneath, Long live Nagy! (Es lebe Nagy).14 (Imre Nagy was a popular Hungarian leader who had pioneered the New Course reforms as Prime Minister from 1953 until 1955, when Rkosi engineered his removal.) General threats proliferated. Someone should kill these communists!, several factory workers shouted when they spotted party members walking in front of them.15 Five youths in the district of Suhl drew SS signs on their hats.16 Several party officials in one state-owned enterprise found a pile of threatening letters with a human skull on top.17 Lacking direct access to Ulbricht, angry citizens beat up lower party officials and members in Hoyersdorf (district Bitterfeld) and the regions of Berlin (Pankow), Berlin-Mitte and Brandenberg, according to reports dated 5, 13 and 17 November respectively. 18
10 SAPMO DY 301 IV 2/5/574, #5, Kurzinformation zu den Ereignissen in Volkspolen und der Ungarischen Volksrepublik, Berlin, den 26.10.1956, 31. 11 SAPMO DY 30/ IV 2/5, 574, #13, Informationsbericht ber die Stimmung der Bevlkerung zu den letzten Ereignissen in Ungarn, die imperialistische Aggression gegen gypten und die Tagung der Volkskammer der DDR, Berlin, den 7.11.1956, 91. Otto Grotewohl was the East Germ an Prime Minister (194964) and former head of the German Socialist Party. Nikolai Bulganin was Soviet Minister of Defence (195355) and deputy chairman, USSR Council of Ministers, 195558. 12 Originally divided into five states, East Germany was reorganized into 15 regions (Bezirke) and smaller districts (Kreise) on 23 July 1952. They ceased to exist when Germany was unified on 3 October 1990 and the former states (Lnder) were restored (Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, SaxonyAnhalt, Thringia, Saxony, and Brandenburg). 13 SAPMO DY 30/ IV 2/5, 574, #14, Informationsbericht ber die Stimmung der Bevlkerung zu den letzten Ereignissen in Ungarn, die imperialistische Aggression gegen gypten und die Tagung der Volkskammer der DDR, Berlin, den 9.11.56, 101. 14 SAPMO DY 30/ IV 2/5, 574, #15, p. 106, Kurzinformation ber die Stimmung der Bevlkerung zu den Ereignissen in Ungarn, die imperialistische Aggression gegen gypten und die Tagung der Volkskammer der DDR, den 13.11.1956. Other calls for Ulbrichts resignation came from Dresden as well as Jena. See SAPMO DY 30/ IV 2/5, 574, p. 116 and 120, Informations -bericht, Berlin, den 28.11. 1956. 15 SAPMO DY 30/ IV 2/5, 574, #13, Informationsbericht ber die Stimmung der Bevlkerung zu den letzten Ereignissen in Ungarn, die imperialistische Aggression gegen gypten und die Tagung der Volkskammer der DDR, Berlin, den 7.11.1956, p. 90. 16 Ibid., 945. 17 Ibid., 94. 18 SAPMO DY 30/ IV 2/5, 574, #12, Informationsbericht ber die Stimmung der Bevlkerung zu den letzten Ereignissen in Ungarn, die imperialistische Aggression gegen gypten und die Tagung der Volkskammer der DDR, Berlin, den 5.11.1956, p. 83; SAPMO DY 30/ IV 2/5, 574, #15, Kurzinformation ber die Stimmung der Bevlkerung zu den Ereignissen in Ungarn, die
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Teachers and students chose more passive forms of resistance such as moments of silence (Gedenkenminuten), hunger strikes, withdrawals from the Free Youth Organization and German-Soviet Friendship Society, and the refusal to donate money for the mess the Russians made in Hungary.19 Students asked difficult questions. Why did the capitalist government in West Germany not use military force to suppress a workers strike in Schleswig -Holstein? Why did the Warsaw Pact invade one of its own member countries if it was supposed to defend its members only from external attacks? Why did the other member countries not join the USSR in the intervention?20 At one high school in Salzwedel, female twelfthgraders wore the Hungarian national colours and sat in rows organized by those colours: green, red and white. When the teacher reported the incident to the principal, the students called her a traitor.21 At another high school in Weiwasser, 15 students remained stand-ing after the teacher entered the room. When asked why they did not sit down, they said We remember the fallen Puskas.22 This was a play on words, refer-ring both to a gun or rifle puska and Ferenc Puskas, one of the greatest Hungarian soccer players in the world at the time. 23 Rumours had spread that Puskas and several other famous athletes who had sided with the insurgents had been killed.24 Clearly, the East German people were enraged, as this partial list suggests. Yet a revolution did not erupt; Ulbricht was able to silence his critics and even bolster his political status. This article will examine the reasons for Ulbrichts political survival under the following heading: Soviet perspectives; East German leadership (Ulbricht); opposition members in the SED; the intelli-gentsia; and students and the general population. Although this article does not purport to be a systematic comparison of the GDR and Hungary, occasion references to the Hungarian situation will be useful.
imperialistische Aggression gegen gypten und die Tagung der Volkskammer der DDR, den 13.11.1956, p. 1078; SAPMO DY 30/ IV 2/5, 574, #17, Informationsbericht ber die Stimmung der Bevlkerung zu den Ereignissen in Ungarn, die imperialistische Aggression gegen gypten und die 16. u. 17. Tagung der Volkskammer der DDR, Berlin, den 17 Nov. 1956, p. 115. 19 SAPMO DY 30/ IV 2/5, 574, #13, Informationsbericht ber die Stimmung der Bevlkerung zu den letzten Ereignissen in Ungarn, die imperialistische Aggression gegen gypten und die Tagung der Volkskammer der DDR, Berlin, den 7.11.1956, p. 98. 20 SAPMO DY/30/IV 2/ 5, 574, #8, p. 55, Kurzinformation ber die Ereignisse in Volkspolen und Ungarn sowie ber erste Argumente zur Lage im vorderen Orient, den 31.10.56. Also SAPMO, DY/30/IV 2/ 5, 574, #9, p. 61, Information ber die Ereignisse in gypten und Ungarn u nd die eingeleiteten Manahmen von den Bezirks- und Kreisleitungen, den 2.11.1956. 21 Ibid., p. 89. 22 Ibid., pp. 8990. 23 By 1956, Ferenc Puskas (b. 1927) and the Hungarian soccer team (Kispest Honved) had captured an Olympic Gold Medal (1952) and the Hungarian Championship four times (1950, 1952, 1954 and 1955). Renamed the Real Madrid after the Hungarian Revolution, the team went on to capture the World Cup Championship in 1960. 24 SAPMO DY/30/IV 2/ 5, 574, #7, p. 46, Kurzinformation ber die Ereignis se in Volkspolen und Ungarn, Berlin, den 29.10.56.
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As the following will show, the fact that Ulbricht was not ousted in East Germany probably meant that the Khrushchev leadership needed him, or at least felt it unnecessary to replace him. As the only divided country threatened externally (by Western calls for unification), the GDR was distinct from the other satellites. Among other factors, the June 1953 uprising and ousting of Lavrentii Beria ultimately convinced Khrushchev of the need to back Ulbricht and prop up the GDR even though in the months just before and after the uprising, he and his colleagues, along with members of the SED Politburo, had seriously considered sacrificing Ulbricht as a scapegoat for the economic stagnation caused by Stalins policies.25 According to Grotewohls notes of the SED Politburo meeting on 8 July 1953, Zaisser (Minister of State Security) had condemned Ulbrichts cold-blooded administering that had spoiled the Party. It would be catastrophic for the New Course, he said, to leave the apparatus in the hands of W[alter] U[lbricht]. All SED Politburo members agreed, except Honecker (chairman of the Free German Youth Organization) and Hermann Matern (chairman of the Party Control Commission).26 Likewise, in a 49-page report to the CC CPSU, Semyonov (Soviet High Commissioner in the GDR), Sokolovsky and Yudin criticized Ulbricht for ignoring the workers demands to repeal t he increase in work norms and recommended that Ulbricht be removed from the position of General Secretary.27 Even before the June uprising, during a key meeting of Soviet and GDR leaders on 28 May 1953, Lavrentii Beria and Vyacheslav Molotov had taken opposing positions on the fate of the GDR. Beria had suggested abandoning the goal of building socialism there and simply allowing Germany to be uni-fied as a neutral, democratic, bourgeois state. The GDR? he exclaimed. What does it amount to, this GDR? Its not even a real state. Its only kept in being by Soviet troops, even if we do call it the German Democratic Republic. When Molotov and others expressed shock, Beria maintained: All we need is a peaceful Germany; whether it is socialist or not isnt important to us.28 But
25 Melvin Croan, Germany and Eastern Europe in Joseph Held (ed.) The Columbia History of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century (New York 1992), 358. 26 See Otto Grotewohls handwritten notes of the SED CC Politburo meeting on 8 July 1953 in SAPMO IV 2/2/363. For an English translation, see document #67 in Christian F. Ostermann, Uprising in East Germany, 1953 (Budapest 2001), 2978. 27 AVP RF, f. 06, o. 12a, p. 5, d. 301, ll. 151, 24 June 1953, Report from Vasilii Sokolovskii, Vladimir Semyonov and Pavel Yudin, On the Events of 1719 June 1953 in Berlin and the GDR and Certain Conclusions from These Events published in English in Ostermann, Uprising in East Germany, 1953, document #60, 25785. Sokolovskii was Chief of the Soviet General Staff from 1952 to 1960. Yudin served as Deputy High Commissioner for Germany in June 1953. 28 Quoted in William Taubman, Khrushchev. The Man and his Era (New York 2003), 2478. No transcripts have been found of this meeting of 28 May 1953 but numerous memoirs refer to Berias proposal. See, for example, Anastas Mikoyan, Tak Bylo. Razmyshleniya o minuvshem (Moscow 1999), 584; Felix Chuev, Sto sorok besed s Molotovym (Moscow 1991), 333; and Pavel Sudoplatov, Special Tasks. The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness, a Soviet Spymaster (Boston 1994), 3634. Beria apparently instructed Sudoplatov to conduct intelligence probes to determine the Wests openness to the idea. Khrushchev stated publicly on 10 July 1963 that Beria, as well as Malenkov, had wanted to liquidate the German state. See Pravda, 10 July 1963.
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to Khrushchev and others, to deliver into the paws of the bourgeois bosses the GDR with its 18 million citizens and uranium reserves was unthinkable. 29 A month later, Khrushchev used this proposal to oust Beria (in addition to revelations that Beria had recruited some Yugoslavs for intelligence work and made overtures to Tito unbeknownst to the Soviet Central Committee).30 Khrushchev also punished Malenkov two years later (1955) by demoting him for his support of Berias proposal to abandon the GDR. Having accom-plished these feats, Khrushchev could not in good conscience sacrifice Ulbrichts regime, not to mention the fact that his support of the GDR was (until 1955) a bargaining chip for keeping West Germany out of NATO. While passing through Berlin to Moscow after the Geneva summit in July 1955, Khrushchev stopped in East Berlin to tell the SED leaders that he would make no agreement on German reunification at the expense of the GDR.31 The regimes very frailty bound the Khrushchev leadership to it. As we shall see, thoughts of dismissing Ulbricht were tightly linked to fears of the GDRs collapse. The Kremlin leaders needed Ulbricht to hold the fort. Moreover, to depose Ulbricht suddenly might signal weakness to the West. Documents from the Soviet Central Committee, Foreign Ministry and Military Administration archives indicate that, from the outset, in the summer of 1945 when Soviet officials began to organize the eastern sector, they harboured a zero-sum mentality and keen sense of competition with the West. An electoral defeat for the SED constituted a victory for the West, for example, while the exposure of improprieties in Western denazification procedures became ipso facto a victory for the Soviet Union. 32 The question of who could make their half of the country prosper more seemed to dominate Soviet thinking. Moreover, Berlin in the heart of East Germany was one of the major chokepoints of the Cold War. Our previous capital of Berlin now sits like an island and outpost in the middle of a red ocean, Ade nauer told an audience in San Francisco in April 1953.33 The troops of each superpower faced one another in the city. In the two Germanies as a whole, Red Army troops (380,000 men in 20 ground force divisions) stood at a ratio of roughly 3 1 to
29 The issue of uranium was brought up at the third session of the CPSU CC plenum, on 3 July 1953. See Transcript of the CPSU CC Plenum Meetings Regarding Berias Views on the German Question in Spring 1953, 23 July 1953 in Ostermann, Uprising in East Germany, 1953, docu-ment #24, 161. 30 See SAPMO DY 30/3641, p. 2 (Nikita Khrushchevs letter to the SED leadership of 4 June 1954). Indeed, Khrushchev and his colleagues found among Berias papers a letter to Aleksandr Rankovi N (Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister from 1953 to 1963) suggesting that a secret summit with Tito be arranged. See Boris Starkov, Sto Dnei Lyubyanskovo Marshala, Istochnik, no. 4 (1993), 86. Discussed also in Taubman, Khrushchev. The Man and his Era, op. cit., 247. 31 Sheldon Anderson, A Cold War in the Soviet Bloc. PolishEast German Relations, 19451962 (Boulder, CO 2001), 101. 32 Norman Naimark, The Russians in Germany. A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945 1949 (Cambridge and London 1995), 465. 33 Hoover Archive, Folder 6200610.V, p. 3, Rede des Herrn Bundeskanzlers (Konrad Adenauer) vor dem Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, 11 April 1953.
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US troops. The Soviet troop contingent in Germany (later called the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany) was by far the Warsaw Pacts most potent military force outside the Soviet Union.34 Because US strategic doctrine rested on the expectation that the Soviet Union would first attack Western Europe, planners in Washington focused intensely on the region. In contrast to Hungary (a former ally of nazi Germany with which the USA lacked traditional ties), the Kremlin realistically feared what the Americans might do in Germany. Russian documents refer continually to US activities in West Germany, namely by Radio Free Europe and the host of migr organizations that conduct subversive activities against the socialist camp based in Munich and the American espionage centre CIC (US Army G-2 Counter-Intelligence Corps) in Berchtesgaden.35 The Soviet state security chief Aleksandr Shelepin reported to the CPSU Congress in 1959 that the USA and other Western states had more than 40 espionage organizations in West Berlin.36 The imperialists were too close. Whereas Hungary was almost impossible to defend militarily (because of its landlocked position and Austrian neutrality), the Americans had a toe-hold deep inside the GDR. We must not forget, Molotov said on 2 July 1953 during the CPSU CC plenum, that East Germany is in the particularly compli-cated position wherein, using their position as occupying powers in Berlin, the powers of [the] USA, England and France, as well as the powers of West Germany, can take many steps which have a disorganizing effect on the politi-cal and economic situation in the GDR.37 Khrushchev may have felt that in 1956 the Russians might not be as fortunate as they had been in June 1953 when the Americans did not intervene. Hence, Moscow needed to stay alert and to keep a strong leader like Ulbricht in the GDR, someone unafraid to apply military force and summon Soviet reinforcements. A possible indicator of the Khrushchev leaderships trust in Ulbricht is the fact that on the eve of the second Soviet intervention in Hungary, Khrushchev flew to Brest (31 October), Bucharest (1 November), and to Brioni, Yugoslavia (2 November) to inform Polish, Romanian, Bulgarian and Yugoslav leaders, but not to Berlin to inform Ulbricht. They must have assumed that Ulbricht would approve of the invasion. Furthermore, in the Hungarian case, it was necessary to replace Rkosi to improve SovietYugoslav relations. The Soviet rapprochement with Yugo-slavia in 1955 became a major plank in Khrushchevs policy of destalinization. The Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito detested Rkosi with his blood-soaked hands so much for having staged trials, given false information and sentenced
34 Library of Congress, Country Studies. East Germany, Library of Congress. URL:http:// lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?frd/cstdy. Viewed: 15 November 2003. 35 AVP RF (Moscow) f. 77, o. 37, por. 36, p. 53, l. 140, Spravka, Otnosheniya Vengrii s Zapadnoi Germaniei, 19561957 g.g., posolstvo SSSR v Vengrii, 18 dekabrya 1957 g. 36 See Shelepins report in The New York Times, 5 February 1959, p. 8, col. 3. 37 Transcript of the CPSU CC Plenum Meetings Regarding Berias Views on the German Question in Spring 1953, 23 July 1953 in Ostermann, Uprising in East Germany, 1953, docu-ment #24, 159.
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innocent men to death for being Titoist spies that he even refused to take a train through Hungary on his way to Moscow for the summit in June 1956, travelling through Romania instead.38 In the GDR case, no other state leader insisted on Ulbrichts removal. Not as bossy and stubborn as Rkosi, Ulbricht was also more palatable to the Kremlin leaders as a Gentile.39 Due to their own prejudice and fear of the non-Jewish populations dissatisfaction, the Mosco w leaders were concerned about the concentration of Jews among the party lites in the East European socialist states, particularly in Hungary and Poland. The big four Hungarian commu -nist leaders who dominated Hungary in the postwar period were all Jewish: Mtys Rkosi (Rth), Mihly Farkas (Wolf), Jzsef Rvai (Lederer) and Ern ~ Ger~ (Singer).40 During a meeting in Moscow in June 1953, Beria had derisively alluded to Rkosi as a Jewish king. According to a telegram written during his visit to Budapest in June, Soviet Politburo member Mikhail Suslov also considered the number of Jews at the top of the Hungarian leadership to be a real problem. 41 Vladimir Kryuchkov, Third Secretary in the Soviet embassy in Budapest, also reported the issue as a problem during his conver-sation with Istvn Kirly, editor of the journal Csillag.42 Jnos Kdr told the Soviet ambassador to Hungary Yuri Andropov that only during Rkosis arbi-trary rule had Jewishness become associated with the regime, implying that once Rkosi was dismissed, antisemitism would dissipate in Hungary.43 At the funeral of Polish communist leader Bo*es*aw Bierut in Warsaw in March 1956, Khrushchev revealed the Soviets secret quota of Jews: We have two per cent, which means that ministries, universities, everything, is made up of two per cent Jews. You should know that. Im not an antisemite, indeed we have this minister whos a Jew . . . and we respect him, but you have to know the limits. 44 Khrushchev suggested that the Polish United Workers Party might be more popular if there were fewer Jews in its leadership.45 The East German ambassador to Poland Heymann reported to Berlin on 22 November 1956 that Khrushchevs remarks as well as the Israeli attack on Egypt during the Suez
38 Documents on International Affairs, 1955 (London 1958), 271. 39 At a summit meeting in Moscow on 13 and 16 June 1953, Beria and others roundly con-demned Rkosi for his bossy personality, excessive arrests, flagrant expenditure on the military and subway system, and inability to name anyone among the non-Jewish Hungarians to serve as his primary deputy. See Magyar Orszgos Levltr (MOL, Budapest), 276.f. 102/65 ~.e.; pub-lished in English in Ostermann, Uprising in East Germany, 1953, document #22, 14454. 40 Charles Gati, Hungary and the Soviet Bloc (Durham, NC 1986), 100. These individuals legally changed their names to avoid prejudice among the Hungarian people. Of course, ones Jewish heritage is not always revealed by ones surname. 41 RGANI, f 89, o 2, d 2, l. 4. Informatsiya Mikhaila Suslova iz Budapeshta, 13 iyunya 1956. 42 RGANI, f 5, o 28, rolik 5169, d 394, Iz Dnevnika V. A. Kriuchkova, Zapis Besedy s Glavnym Redaktorom Vengerskovo Zhurnala Chillag, Ishtvan Kirai, 12 iyulya 1956 g. 43 RGANI, f 89, o 2, d 2, ll. 5354, Zapis Besedy Mikoyana s Kadarom, 14 iyulya 1956 g. On the Jewish issue, see also B.I. Zhelitskii, A.M. Kirov, N. Kapichenko et al., 1956; Osen v Budapeshte (Moscow 1996), 10. 44 Quoted in William Taubman, Khrushchev. The Man and his Era, op. cit., 292. 45 Neal Ascherson, The Polish August. The Self-Limiting Revolution (New York 1982), 71.
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Crisis contributed to a rise of antisemitism similar to the fascist times among the Polish people, who held many Jewish functionaries responsible for the economic failure of the Five Year Plan.46 The Soviet diplomats viewpoint should also be considered. Whereas Andropov became convinced that Rkosi should be deposed and advised Moscow accordingly, the Soviet ambassador to the GDR Georgii Pushkin supported Ulbricht. (Interestingly enough, Pushkin had also served as Soviet ambassador to Hungary in the late 1940s, at the height of the anti-Tito cam-paign.) Andropov dutifully reported each negative comment about Rkosi made by his Hungarian Politburo colleagues. For example, Andrs Hegeds, the chairman of the Hungarian Council of Ministers, told Andropov on 4 May 1956: Lately Rkos i has been working sporadically, neglecting to study the big political and economic issues. Sometimes he does not show the necessary interest in urgent, important matters. 47 Also Istvn Kovcs, a member of the Hungarian Workers Party Politburo and head of the commission investigating the so-called Farkas Affair,48 told Andropov on 5 June that Rkosi constantly violated collegiality in the Politburos work, and that many good measures for improving the leadership go to waste due to Rkosis conservatism. Kovcs added: It is necessary to work stubbornly on Rkosi to get him to change his methods.49 By contrast, the Soviet ambassador to the GDR Pushkin did not question Ulbrichts viability and sought to protect him. When Wolfgang Harich, a brilliant but unrealistic young philosophy professor at Humboldt University and editor-inchief of Deutsche Zeitschrift fr Philosophie, gave Pushkin his reformist platform on 25 October 1956,50 for example, Pushkin promptly handed it over to Ulbricht, who summoned Harich for a meeting. Harich enthusiastically explained his plans at length to the hard-boiled Stalinist: dis-bandment of the Stasi, German reunification (envisaged in left Social Democratic terms), a purge of Stalinist leftovers in the SED, and legalization of the political opposition that would not shrink from taking factional activity if forced to by the apparatus. The philosopher Bergson once quipped: Some faculty other than the intellect is necessary for the apprehension of reality. Predictably, Ulbricht
46 AA (Berlin) M3/1150, pp. 34, Zur Lage in Polen, Warschau, den 22.11.1956. 47 AVP RF, f 077, o 37, p 187, d 6, ll. 5455, Zapis Besedy Yu. V. Andropova s A. Khegedushem, 4ovo maya 1956. 48 Mihly Farkas (190465) was a member of the Politburo of the Hungarian Communist Party, and from 1948 to 1953 served as Minister of Defence. He carried a large share of the responsibility for the mass repressions from the late 1940s1950s, in part as one of the main orga-nizers of the trial of Lszl Rajk in 1949. The decision to re-examine the role of Farkas in the repressions was made by the Hungarian Politburo in April 1956. He was expelled from the Hungarian Workers Party (MDP) on 22 July 1956 and arrested on 13 October 1956. In 1957 he was sentenced to 16 years in prison, but three years later he was given amnesty. 49 AVP RF, f 077, o 37, p 187, d 6, l. 107, Zapis Besedy Yu. V. Andropova s I. Kovachem, 5ovo iyunya 1956. 50 Ehrlos in die Grube?, Der Spiegel, 13 (1991), 100.
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instructed the Stasi officials not to let Harich out of their sight, and on 29 November 1956 arrested him and sentenced him to ten years in prison. 51 In a report to Moscow, Pushkin stated that the process of eliminating the cult of personality in the GDR should be handled discreetly, otherwise the enemy could capitalize on the situation. While he acknowledged that Ulbricht was widely viewed as Stalinist number one in the country, Pushkin also warned that if Ulbricht was demoted too abruptly, others at home or in the West would try to unseat him, which might lead to the collapse of the SED in the GDR.52 Thus, due to geopolitical and other circumstantial factors, the Khrushchev leadership was wary of making changes in the GDR, while at the same time convinced that such changes might be desirable in Hungary.
Another crucial factor in Ulbrichts survival was his own tenacious personality and political shrewdness. It is no accident that he was the oldest surviving Stalinist subaltern among the East European leaders, older than even Rkosi, who served as Hungarian First Secretary from 1945 to July 1956. In a recent controversial book, Wilfried Loth goes so far as to argue that Stalin might have unified Germany had it not been for Ulbrichts insistence on governing a separate GDR state.53 In the years before the Berlin Wall was built, Ulbricht was especially strict out of necessity. The latest archival evidence reveals that Ulbricht actually became much more liberal (in contrast to his successor Erich Honecker) after 1961 when citizens could no longer flee. In attempts to improve the economy, he supported closer relations with West Germany, despite Soviet admonitions.54 Memories of 17 June 1953 haunted Ulbricht. Rkosi and his successors had not received a wake-up call in the form of a workers rebellion similar to those in the GDR, Plzew (Czechoslovakia, 1953) and in Poznav (Poland, June 1956). Ernst Wollweber, who succeeded Zaisser as the GDRs Minister of State Security when the latter was drummed out of the Politburo after the 1953 uprising, remarked that whenever the GDRs security was discussed, Ulbricht had the shock of 17 June still in his bones. He was particularly haunted by the possibility of a reformist like the Polish leader Gomu*ka arising in the GDR. As Wollweber expressed it, Gomu*ka was to Ulbricht what a red rag is
51 Ehrhart Neubert, Geschichte der Opposition in der DDR, 19491989 (Berlin 1997), 107. Harich was released in late 1964. See Bericht der Zentralen Parteikontrollkommission der SED ber die Entstehung und Ziele der Gruppe Harich, 26.3.1957. Cited in Dierk Hoffmann , Die DDR vor dem Mauerbau. Dokumente zur Geschichte des Anderen Deutschen Staates, 19491961 (Munich 1993), 26874. 52 AVP RF (Moscow), f. 0742, o. 1, por. 1, p. 1, l. 20. Politicheskoe Pismo per vovo kvartala 1956 goda, 27 aprelya 1956. Cited in Hope M. Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall. SovietEast German Relations, 19531961 (Princeton, NJ 2003), 260. 53 Wilfried Loth, Stalins ungeliebtes Kind. Warum Moskau die DDR nicht wollte (Berlin 1994). 54 On this point, see Catherine Epstein, The Last Revolutionaries. German Communists and their Century (Cambridge, MA 2003), 17984.
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to a bull.55 Ulbricht went to great lengths to avoid discussing the results of the Twentieth CPSU Congress first with the SED Politburo and then with the party organizations.56 He eliminated the possibility of a new uprising in 1956 in an almost Stalinesque manner. Disgruntled workers? Arrest the ringleaders. Restless students? Beat them up. Outspoken intellectuals? Lock them up. Faction leaders in the party? Expel them from the Politburo. When the revolu-tion broke out in Hungary, the Ulbricht regime took extra precautions, sending in armed battle groups (Kampfgruppen) to suppress student demon-strations at Humboldt University in East Berlin,57 authorizing SED Politburo members to carry pistols, 58 and planning for an invasion of West Berlin if provocations by West Berliners got out of hand.59 Two large demonstrations did in fact take place in West Berlin on 5 November as a result of the Soviet invasion of Hungary, but Willy Brandt was able to calm the crowds surging through the Tiergarten just a few yards from the border by intoning the Good Comrade song. In political situations it is useful to know that my German countrymen are fond of singing, he noted wryly.60 Young East Berliners at a department store in Potsdam cheered the demonstrators, compelling regional control organs of the Free German Youth to hold extensive discussions and conferences to change their thinking. 61 Moreover, in contrast to Rkosi, who had to deal with increasing criticism from the Hungarian population demanding changes in the months after Khrushchevs Secret Speech, Ulbricht had a handy escape hatch: the constant stream of refugees escaping from the GDR, 40 per cent of whom were between 15 and 35 years old. Since they were the ones most critical of his repressive policies, Ulbricht was in effect able to detoxify the body politic by squeezing
55 Wilfriede Otto, Ernst Wollweber: Aus Erinnerungen. Ein Portrt Walter Ulbrichts, Beitrge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung, vol. 32, no. 3 (1990), 361, 364. 56 See, for example, Armin Mitter and Stefan Wolle, Untergang auf Raten. Unbekannte Kapitel der DDR Geschichte (Munich 1993), 166; Christian F. Ostermann, East Germany and the Hungarian Revolution, paper presented at Hungary and the World, 1956 conference in Budapest on 2629 September 1996, 48; and Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, op. cit., 6678. 57 See Ulbrichts speech to the 30th SED Plenum, 30 January 1957 (SAPMO DY/30/IV 2/1/170, p. 46.) Also Jan von Flocken and Michael Scholz, Ernst Wollweber. Saboteur, Minister, Unperson (Berlin 1994), 169. 58 Schirdewans report at the twenty-ninth plenum, 12 November 1956. SAPMO, ZPA, DY 30/IV 2/1/165, p. 38. Cited in Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, op. cit., 82. 59 Carola Stern, Ulbricht. Eine politische Biographie (Cologne 1964), 1212. Curiously, how-ever, at the SED Politburo meeting on 19 June 1956, apparently no one discussed the workers revolt in Pozna v, Poland just two days earlier. SAPMO DY 30/J IV 2/2/483, pp. 18, Protokoll Nr. 29/56 der Sitzung des Politbros des Zentralkomitees am 19. Juni 1956 im Zentralhaus der Einheit, Groer Sitzungssaal. 60 David Binder, The Other German. Willy Brandts Life and Times (Washington DC 1975), 154. 61 SAPMO DY/30/IV 2/ 5, 574, #13, Kurzinformation ber die Stimmung der Bevlkerung zu den letzten Ereignissen in Ungarn, die imperialistische Aggression gegen gypten und die Tagung der Volkskammer der DDR, Berlin, den 7.11.1956, 90.
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them out like bitter juice from a lemon. From 1951 to 1953, as many as 447,000 citizens fled to West Germany, according to a top-secret report sent to Malenkov as chair of the Soviet Council of Ministers. It is remarkable that among those who have fled . . . 2718 are members or candidates of the SED and 2610 are members of Free German Youth.62 Another SED Politburo-appointed investigative commission reported that between 1954 and 1955 the number of escapees had risen from about 173,300 to 270,100. In the first quarter of 1956 alone (January to March), 75,200 had fled.63 It was no coinci-dence that the number of refugees in 1956, especially after the revolution in Hungary, was abnormally high (316,000 in contrast to 270,115 in 1954, according to Soviet records). 64 While ordinary West Germans dubbed the mass influx of refugees into their regime reunification through depopulation, Adenauer used it to justify asking for more Western aid: I believe the Soviets have intentionally caused the overpopulation of the Federal Republic in order to shake up our social and economic structure, rendering it susceptible to undermining by communism, which requires social and economic hardship to flourish.65
Although archival-based studies published since the GDRs collapse reveal that reform efforts and challenges to the SED over the 40-year span were more wideranging than previously thought, the fact remains that in the 1950s the handful of potential opposition leaders within the SED remained isolated from dissident segments of the intelligentsia.66
62 AVP RF, f. 3, o. 64, d. 802, ll. 153161, published in Christian F. Ostermann, Uprising in East Germany, 1953 (Budapest 2001), document #19, 1336. 63 SAPMO, ZPA, J IV/ 2/2/483, Bericht der Kommission zu Fragen der Republikflucht v. 25.5.1956. 64 RGANI (Moscow), rolik 8979, f. 5, o. 49, d. 381, Ukhod naseleniya iz GDR v Zapadnuyu Germaniyu v 19501960 gg, 7 April 1961. 65 Hoover Archive, Folder 6200610.V, p. 4, Rede des Herrn Bundeskanzlers (Konrad Adenauer) vor dem Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, 11 April 1953. 66 See Stefan Wolle, Das MfS und die Arbeiterproteste im Herbst 1956 in der DDR, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 5, 91 (25 January 1991), 4251. Wolle shows that the workers had indeed expressed their discontent in the autumn of 1956. Christoph Kleman perhaps goes to extremes in stressing the continuity in opposition groups throughout East German history. See Kleman, Opposition u nd Dissidenz in der Geschichte der DDR, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 5, 91 (25 January 1991), 5262. For recent English-language debates on other types of opposition and their impact on the German leadership and society, see Gary Bruce, Resistance with the People. Repression and Resistance in Eastern Germany, 19451955 (New York 2003); Corey Ross, The East German Dictatorship. Problems and Perspectives in the Interpretation of the GDR (New York 2002); Patrick Major and Jonathan Osmond (eds), The Workers and Peasants State. Communism and Society in East Germany under Ulbricht, 1945 71 (Manchester and New York 2002); Mark Allinson, Politics and Popular Opinion in East Germany, 194568 (Manchester and New York 2000); David Rock (ed.), Voices in Times of Change. The Role of Writers, Opposition Movements, and the Churches in the Transformation of East Germany (New York 2000); Mike Dennis, The Rise and Fall of the German Democratic Republic, 1945 1990 (Essex 2000); Monika Kaiser, Reforming Socialism? The Changing of the Guard from Ulbricht to Honecker during the
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After the Twentieth CPSU Congress several senior SED officials embraced destalinization, urging greater party unity and internal democracy. These included Karl Schirdewan, a member since July 1953 of the Politburo and the Central Committee Secretary for Cadre Questions; Fred Oelner, the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers; Paul Wandel, Central Committee Secretary for Culture; Kurt Hager, Central Committee Secretary for Science, National Education and Culture; Gerhard Ziller, Central Committee Secretary for the Economy, and the aforementioned Ernst Wollweber. As in Hungary, the dichotomy between Muscovites (those in Moscow during the second world war) and home communists (those who stayed in their native country during the war) prevailed in the GDR. Ulbricht, as a Muscovite (along with Fred Oelner) was leery of party members like Schirdewan and Fritz Selbmann (Deputy Prime Minister), who had never lived in the Soviet Union, but instead had suffered long years in nazi concentration camps during the second world war. Ulbrichts stonewalling after Khrushchevs exposure of Stalins crimes deeply troubled Schirdewan, who as a member of the German Communist Party (KPD) since 1925 was a principled true believer. I suspected that Walter Ulbricht and Alfred Neumann, who had lived in the Soviet Union for years, knew of some of Stalins crimes, he wrote in his memoirs.67 They had to have known that the NKVD arrested comrades, including Germans, from the Hotel Lux in the middle of the night. But for Otto Grotewohl and me this information was horrible. We had never known about Stalins crimes and personal despotism in such detail.68 Schirdewan naively signalled his discontent to Ulbricht. However, he as well as other Politburo members critical of Ulbricht strongly adhered to the Leninist principle of party unity and ban on factions first proclaimed in March 1921 at the Tenth CPSU Congress. He could not bring himself to oppose Ulbricht publicly; to do so would make Schirdewan seem the traitor and Ulbricht the innocent victim, he thought. In fact, when it was his turn to give a speech at the twenty-sixth plenum that began on 22 March 1956, Schirdewan told the delegates that they needed to analyse Stalins behaviour and the dangers of the cult of personality. However, all these issues could only be resolved when the whole party stands toge ther in strict unity (in fester Einheit zusammenstehe).69 This might have been the perfect opportunity to
1960s in Dictatorship as Experience. Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the GDR (New York and Oxford 1999), 32539; Eric D. Weitz, Creating German Communism, 18901990. From Popular Protests to Socialist State (Princeton, NJ 1997); John Torpey, Intellectuals, Socialism, and Dissent. The East German Opposition and its Legacy (Minneapolis, MN 1995); Mary Fulbrook, Anatomy of a Dictatorship. Inside the GDR, 19491989 (Oxford 1995). On economic reform efforts, see Doris Cornelsen, Die Wirtschaft der DDR in der Honecker-ra in Gert-Joachim Glaener (ed.), Die DDR in der ra Honecker. Politik, Kultur, Gesellschaft (Opladen 1988). 67 Alfred Neumann was First Secretary of the SED district of Berlin, a Central Committee member and candidate Politburo member. By early 1957 he had taken over Schirdewans responsibilities as Ulbricht trusted Schirdewan less and less. 68 Schirdewan, Aufstand gegen Ulbricht, op. cit., 78. 69 Ibid., 84.
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challenge Ulbricht openly. Schirdewan yearned for an open discussion of mis-takes (Fehlerdiskussion) regarding the cult of personality, the refugee problem and the implications of peaceful coexistence for German unification. But the domestic and international situations were too fragile. The party had to be protected from inner disunity, he opined later in his memoirs. The majority of the party members did not yet know that the Twentieth Party Congress had provided many new ways of thinking about how to achieve true democracy within the party.70 Schirdewan spoke to the delegates instead about how the personality cult could lead to dogmatism, which would belittle the achievements of party functionaries and members.71 Ironically, this devout reverence for party unity would ultimately enable Ulbricht to expel Schirdewan from the party for allegedly conspiring against it. A political opportunist wields loyalty to the organization as a weapon; the statesman subscribes to the principle and suffers the consequences. Clearly, Schirdewan did not have the personality for the role of opposition leader. Ulbricht, who had purposely postponed Schirdewans talk until the second day of the conference as a way of diminishing its importance, braced himself for an attack from his colleague. When it did not come, he thanked Schirdewan in surprise. 72 As mentioned above, Ulbricht was extremely sensitive about potential opponents, a German Gomu*ka. He actually approached Schirdewan in pri-vate one day, worried that a faction was being formed against him composed of Fred Oelner,73 Willi Stoph74 and others. Schirdewan tried to reassure him, but after the meeting Schirdewan wondered what Ulbrichts ulterior motive was. 75 In politics, timing is everything. Had Schirdewan craved power, he would have capitalized on the Hungarian and Polish situations much earlier. At Bieruts funeral in Warsaw in March 1956, Khrushchev had singled out Schirdewan to express his dissatisfaction with the refugee problem and Ulbrichts reluctance regarding destalinization.76 Schirdewan apparently believed that he had Soviet support; he told SED Politburo member Hermann Matern on 7 November 1956 that the Soviets disagreed with Ulbricht on many issues and hinted that they agreed with him instead.77 A shrewd oppor-tunist could have utilized Khrushchevs support and the discontent of the masses to challenge Ulbricht and ultimately unseat him. Such an opportunist
70 Ibid., 85. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid., 84. 73 Friedrich (Fred) Oelner was a member of the Central Committee of the SED Politburo (1950 58), SED Central Committee Secretary for Propaganda (195055), and editor-in-chief of the SED Party magazine Einheit (195056). 74 Willi Stoph was a member of the Central Committee of the SED Politburo (195089); SED Central Committee Politburo (195389), and GDR Minister of the Interior (195255). 75 Schirdewan, Aufstand gegen Ulbricht, op. cit., 90. 76 Ibid., 83. 77 Ibid., 1223.
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would have masked his discontent with his rival until the moment of public attack against him. But Schirdewan gave Ulbricht plenty of signs early on that he was discontented, thus giving Ulbricht ample advanced warning. Stasi chief Wollweber wrote that when he heard Schirdewan make the comment linking Ulbricht with Rkosi, he knew Schirdewans Politburo days were numbered. 78 Had Schirdewan steadily mobilized a following within the SED party lite and there were many potential allies and moved against Ulbricht while the Polish and Hungarian situations were brewing and Khrushchev was still strong in the Kremlin, perhaps he could have toppled Ulbricht, despite the latters political survival skills. However, when the Anti-Party Group mounted a challenge to Khrushchev in 1957, it was already too late for Schirdewan. During the GDR delegations visit to Moscow from 3 to 8 January 1957 to dis -cuss internal issues, Mikoyan had hinted to the Germans, unbeknownst to Khrushchev, that the Kremlin was beset with its own internal problems and that this was no time to bring up the SED leaderships own personality con-flicts.79 Schirdewan was finally expelled from the Central Committee in February 1958 for factional activity. From 1958 to 1965 he served as director of the Ministry of the Interiors state archive in Potsdam. He was formally rehabilitated in 1990 by the Communist Party, renamed the Party of Demo-cratic Socialism (PDS). If not Schirdewan, then why did one of the other SED Politburo members (Oelner, Wandel,80 Wollweber, Ziller, Dahlem,81 Ackermann82) not challenge Ulbricht? Given their strong taboo against factionalism and their conviction that challenging Ulbricht would threaten the regime itself (thus their own posi-tions of power), these officials remained isolated from the disgruntled masses and the intelligentsia. As Catherine Epstein persuasively argues, the harrowing experiences of the 1930s and 1940s endured by the veteran communists those who had joined the KPD before 1933 partly explain the lack of effective opposition within the SED. Harrassed by the nazi authorities and the Soviet NKVD, forced to sacrifice jobs and sometimes families, these communists lived by the
78 Wilfriede Otto, Ernst Wollweber. Aus Erinnerungen. Ein Portrt Walter Ulbrichts, Beitrge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung, vol. 32, no. 3 (1990), 374. 79 Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, op. cit., 86. 80 Paul Wandel was Central Committee Secretary for Culture and Education. 81 Franz Dahlem (18921981) fought in the Spanish Civil War, survived Mauthausen, and became one of the key figures in the SED among former nazi concentration camp victims. He had been one of Ulbrichts main rivals since the days of the Weimar Republic and was ousted in May 1953 from the Central Committee. He was rehabilitated soon after the Poznav revolt in Poland in June 1956. 82 Anton Ackermann was one of the original German communists who, like Ulbricht returned to Germany from Moscow on the very day of Hitlers suicide (30 April 1945). He was assigned the task of executing Communist Party plans for remoulding Saxony (Sachsen). He was expelled from the Politburo after the June 1953 revolt, along with Wilhelm Zaisser, Hans Jendretzky and Elli Schmidt. He was rehabilitated, along with Dahlem, Jendretzky, Schmidt and Merker soon after the Pozna v revolt in Poland in June 1956.
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slogan the party is always right. Numbering some 60,000, these pre -war communists greatly outnumbered those in the other Soviet satellites and wielded more influence among the East German population, particularly the Hitler Youth generation. Given the GDRs lack of political legitimacy, the SED leadership idealized the heroism of these pre-war communists, using the collective memory as a unifying force to substitute for real legitimacy. 83 Thus, many equated criticism of SED policies with threats to the GDRs very survival. Indeed, while Schirdewan and others disagreed with Ulbrichts methods and urged greater democratization within the party, they never challenged communist tenets or advocated a capitalist economy for the GDR. The fate of Gerhard Ziller illustrates the East German communists fear of factionalism. In a drunken moment during a celebration at the Wismut indus-trial complex, Ziller apparently bragged to colleagues on 7 December 1957 that at the next plenum he, Schirdewan, Oelner and others would try to change the political line and oust the current leadership. When they got wind of this, a majority of SED Politburo members agreed that Zillers comment indicated factional behaviour. Ziller responded on 14 December by taking his own life. 84 Moreover, potential opposition members who secretly disagreed with Ulbricht lacked the potent moral cause that supported Hungarian opposition leaders and intellectuals.85 As unpopular as Ulbricht was, with his steep work norms, he had not conducted the massive blood purge during the anti-Tito campaign that characterized Rkosis regime (perhaps hesitating to stimulate the haemorrhaging of GDR citizens to the West).86 In the GDR there was no Lszlo Rajk,87 the unjustly murdered Hungarian Foreign Minister whose ceremonial reburial on 6 October 1956 later became known as the rehearsal of the revolution. As Gza Kassai, Hungarian Deputy Minister of Education, said to Soviet diplomat Petunin on 4 October 1956: [T]he Rajk trial personi -fies all the unfairness and illegality (bezzakonnost) concerning honest, dedi-cated communists.88 Given the significance also of rapprochement with Yugoslavia as part of Khrushchevs destalinization policy, Titos caustic speech to Hungarian communists in June 1955, insisting on elucidating the
83 See Epstein, The Last Revolutionaries, op. cit., 17984. 84 Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall, op. cit., 91. 85 Croan, Germany and Eastern Europe, op. cit., 358. 86 David Childs, The Stasi. The East German Intelligence and Security Service (New York 1996), 434. 87 Lszl Rajk (190949) was a leading functionary of the underground Communist Party before 1944. He was Rkosis Minister of the Interior from 1946 to 1948 and then Foreign Minister. His show trial in SeptemberOctober 1949 marked the beginning of the anti-Titoist campaign. The three other high-level victims of the purge trials in 1949 were Gyrgy Plffy, Tibor Szonyi and Andrs Szalai. For a recent archive-based study of the Rajk affair, see Bla I. Zhelitskii, Tragicheskaya Sudba Laslo Raika, Vengriya 1949 g., Novaya i Noveishaya Istoriya, nos. 13 (2001), 16686. 88 AVP, f. 077, o. 37, por. 10, p. 188, l. 213, Iz Dnevnika M. Petunina, Zapis Besedy s Zamestitelem Ministra Obrazovaniya VNR, Tovarishchem Geza Kashshai, 4 oktyabrya 1956.
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Rajk Affair, further guaranteed the issues prominence and gave both opposi -tion members and the litterati a lever with which to dislodge the Hungarian Stalinists that East Germans lacked vis--vis their own Stalinists.89 Indeed, in the case of East Germany, Yugoslav diplomats remarks favouring German reunification tended to unite the SED Politburo members around Ulbricht.90 While potential opposition leaders within the SED were isolated from the intelligentsia, the opposite was the case in Hungary. One will recall that, although Rkosi had squeezed Nagy out of the prime ministership and the Hungarian Communist Party altogether in 1955, he failed to extract a confes-sion from him. This enhanced Nagys stature as a beacon for the opposition. Instead of a pariah, Rkosi (against Moscows wishes) became a loose cannon, now wholly uncontrollable as a non-party member.91 Colleagues and students who had helped Nagy formulate his agricultural reform programme, as well as politicians, writers and journalists, came to be known as the Nagy group, and from 1954 on grew more vocal even in the official press.92 At the end of October 1954, for example, senior employees at the main party organ Szabad Np expressed support for Nagys New Course and disapproval of the individuals sabotaging it.93
Let us turn to the East German intelligentsia. Deep protest movements are usually sparked off and fuelled by writers, artists and other lites. While Schirdewan censored himself internally, the East German intelligentsia was heavily censored by external forces, unlike such Hungarian intellectuals and journalists as Tibor Dry, Gza Losonczy, Mikls Gimes, Sndor Haraszti, Gyula Hy, Tams Aczl and the young members of the Pet~fi Circle (Pet~fi
89 AVP RF, f. 077, o. 37, p. 191, d. 39, l. 8, O Sostoyanii Vengero-Yugoslavskikh Otnoshenii: Kratkaya Spravka, 8ovo fevralya 1956 g., N. Skachev, sovetnik V Evropeiskovo Otdela MID SSSR. 90 SAPMO, DY 30/3641, p. 3, Unterredung der Genossen Karl Schirdewan, Paul Wandel, Gerhart Ziller, und Peter Florin mit dem Mitglied des ZK des Bundes der Kommunisten Jugoslawiens, Genossen Vlajko Begovic, am 23.5.1956. The Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong stressed the division of the two Germanies, on the other hand. When Ulbricht told him, West Germany will negotiate with the GDR one day, Mao replied cynically, You still have many great hopes. Adenauer and Ollenhauer do not want to speak with you yet. (Erich Ollenhauer was chairman of the Social Democratic Party from 1952 to 1963 and a member of the Bundestag in West Germany from 1948 to 1963.) SAPMO NL 4182/1220, Conversation of SED Central Committee delegation with Mao Zedong and others, 9 July 1956, 28. 91 See discussion between Vladimir Kryuchkov (Third Secretary in the Soviet embassy, Budapest) and Ltzendorf (diplomat in the East German embassy, Budapest) on 2 August 1956 in AA II/3 III 372/61, A 17711 (Beziehungen DDR-UVR), 1. 92 SAPMO, DY 30/3660, p. 6, Aktenvermerk ber eine Information des Sekretrs des ZK der PdUW, Genossen Vg und des Auenministers Horvth im Gebude des ZK am 2.10.56. In this document Bla Vg (a member of the MDP Central Committee, 195356) accuses Nagy of incit-ing the intelligentsia, which in turn was trying to disturb the unity of the Hungarian Workers Party. 93 Csaba Bks, Malcolm Byrne and Jnos Rainer (eds), The 1956 Hungarian Revolution. A History in Documents (Budapest and New York 2002).
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Kr), an intellectual organization originally established in 1954 by people linked to the Hungarian National Museum and led by Istvn Lakatos, a non-party member and poet.94 As early as the autumn of 1955, several months after Nagys reformist programme was condemned by the MDP Central Committee at the March 1955 plenum, members of the Hungarian Writers Union led by Tibor Dry collectively signed and sent to the party leadership a memorandum protesting against the restriction of freedom of speech and ban on certain literary publications. 95 A Soviet diplomat noted that they eagerly shared Vladimir Dedijers latest biography of Tito, which, due to the smallness of the edition, moved from reader to reader like links on a chain (peredaetsya po tsepochke). He added: Lately the Hungarian intelligentsia has been very strongly attracted to the Yugoslav question.96 Certainly, GDR intellectuals would not be as bold as the Hungarian philosopher Professor Gyrgy Lukcs, whose public comments in early October that the Hungarian party newspaper Szabad Np was a repressive organ and that Hungary was not a democracy galvanized his students into action. 97 Since Lukcs was not arrested for these highly treasonable state-ments, the students did not contain themselves any longer, behaving as though they had never heard of the existence of the state secret police, one Stasi informer fumed.98 Walter Janka, head of the Aufbau publishing house in Berlin, later wrote in his memoirs that the East German intellectuals were jolted awake less by the 20 th Congress than by the events in Poland and Hungary.99 Unlike during the Hungarian crisis, the intelligentsia had remained quite calm during the June 1953 revolt, which had been primarily a workers rebellion sparked off by abnormally high work norms.100 In the summer of 1956 support for the Poles and Hungarians increased. Some intellectuals had direct contact with the Pet~fi Circle.101
94 Andrs B. Hegeds, The Pet~fi Circle. The Forum of Reform in 1956 in Terry Cox (ed.), Hungary 1956 Forty Years On (London 1997), 11012. Hegeds was one of the original secre-taries of the Pet~fi Circle. N.B. The Pet~fi Circle should not be confused with the Pet~fi Party. On 31 October 1956 the National Peasants Party renamed itself the Pet ~fi Party. Its leading members included Gza Fja, Gyula Illys, Dezs Keresztury, Jnos Kodolnyi, Lszl Nemeth, Zsigmond Remnyik, Istvn Sinka, Lrincz Szab and Aron Tamsi. See Magyar Orszgos Leveltar (MOL), Budapest, 1676/2000/XX-5h, 1 doboz, 1 ktet, Esemnynaptr, 1956, old. 148. 95 Vengriya, 1956, Istoricheskii Arkhiv, 4 (1993), 1412. 96 AVP RF, f. 77, o. 37, por. 9, p. 187, d. 036, ll. 5556. Iz Dnevnika V. N. Kelina, Zapis Besedy so Sotrudnikom Gazety Npszava, Lorant, i s Redactorom Zhurnala Csillag, Kirly, 17 iyunya 1956. 97 SAPMO (Berlin) N4/4076, Nr. des Aktenbandes: 147, p. 40. Bericht ber die Entwicklung in Polen, Ungarn, und der CSR im Oktober 1956. 98 Ibid. 99 Walter Janka, Spuren eines Lebens (Berlin 1991), 254. 100 Beate Ihme-Tuchel, Die SED und die Schriftsteller 19461953, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, B. 132000 (24 March 2000), 3. 101 East German documents on the Pet~fi Circle include SAPMO DY 30/3660, pp. 16, Die Organisation und die Ttigkeit des Pet~fi-Kreises; SAPMO, ZPA, DY 30/J IV 2/202/307, and
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Harich was one of the concerned intellectuals seeking a third way between West German capitalism and Stalinist socialism. He penned a proposal or platform, as mentioned earlier, and when Ulbricht received it from Ambassador Pushkin, he moved promptly to arrest Harich. The fact that Harich had extensive contacts in West Germany was enough for Ulbricht to claim that he worked for Western intelligence agencies. He used the garrulous Harich to testify against others, including Janka, to prove the existence of a Harich Group. Janka was duly arrested on 9 December and sentenced to five years in prison for fostering a conspiracy against the state. (He was released in 1960.)102 Harichs arrest initiated a wave of other arrests, denunciations and expulsions from the SED and universities that did not abate until 1958. Some of the revisionist intellectuals punished included: Fritz Behrens (director of the Central Statistical Office and leading economist in the GDR), Ernst Bloch (professor of philosophy at the University of Leipzig), the scientists Robert Havemann and Manfred Hertwig, historian Jrgen Kuczyinski, economist Bernhard Steinberger, Heinz Zger and Gustav Just (editorin-chief and deputy editor, respectively, of the weekly cultural paper Sonntag). In contrast to Hungarian intellectuals in 1956, however, these East German intellectuals were relatively nave, isolated and unorganized. There was no Harich Group; in fact, the two men, Harich and Janka, came to detest each other. In the years following his release, Janka published a number of books and articles full of accusations against Harich.103 Had Harich not testified against him in 1956, Janka would have avoided prison, he claims. (In reality, all of the confessions used in the trials were involuntary.) Later, in the early 1990s, Harich sued Janka in the Berlin District Court.104
Despite the discontent felt by the masses toward Ulbricht and the SED regime, other factors diluted their outrage. First, fears of a third world war prevailed among Stasi informers reports. Citizens went on panic buying
SAPMO, ZPA, DY 30/IV 2/1/170, pp. 11719. To be sure, the Ulbricht regime exaggerated the Harich Groups ties with the Pet~fi Circle in order to justify the crackdown on the former in 195758. 102 See Bericht der Zentralen Parteikontrollkommission der SED ber die Entstehung und Ziele der Gruppe Harich, 26.3.1957. Cited in Hoffmann, Die DDR Vor Dem Mauerbau, op. cit., 26874. 103 See, for example, Walter Janka, Die Unterwerfung. Eine Kriminalgeschichte aus der Nachkriegzeit (Munich 1994); idem, Bis Zur Verhaftung. Erinnerungen eines deutschen Verlegers (Berlin 1993); idem, Spuren eines Lebens (Reinbek bei Hamburg 1992); idem, Schwierigkeiten mit der Wahrheit (Reinbek bei Hamburg 1990); and idem, Nach langem Schweigen endlich sprechen. Briefe an Walter Janka (Berlin 1990). 104 Ehrlos in die Grube?, Der Spiegel, 13 (1991), 97. In response to Jankas book entitled Schwierigkeiten mit der Wahrheit, Harich published a book with the refutative title Keine Schwierigkeiten mit der Wahrheit. Zur nationalkommunistischen Opposition 1956 in der DDR (Berlin 1993), as well as an autobiography, Ahnenpass.Versuch einer Autobiographie (Berlin 1999).
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sprees.105 Some thought a third world war would erupt over Hungary if American troops intervened.106 Others believed that the Soviet Union and the USA would resort to nuclear war over the Suez Canal. Workers from Leipzig said: Yesterday we thought Bulganins message to Eisenhower and Egypts request would lead to a third world war.107 Another worker in the district of Halberstadt said: The only thing missing [in the Suez crisis] is Russian inter-vention. [When that happens] well have a world war.108 This fear of a third world war partially explains why the East German population did not rise up en masse to overthrow Ulbricht. An imminent world war would be expected to have a rally-around-the flag effect.109 Second, the masses were fatalistic after the suppressed revolt of June 1953. The informers recorded a number of comments along the lines of: Yes, we tried back in 1953 what the Hungarians are doing, but the Soviet tanks just crushed us. Good luck. (They were not told although the East German ambassador to Hungary Helmer reported it that some Soviet tanks sided with the Hungarians and refused to fire on them.)110 One citizen commented apathetically: what do we care about Hungary?111 The red dictatorship is run only by Moscow, noted a truck driver from the Schwerin region. When they whistle there, the others must dance. 112 The Poles no longer want Russias
105 SAPMO, DY/30/IV 2/ 5, 574, #13 Kurzinformation ber die Stimmung der Bevlkerung zu den letzten Ereignissen in Ungarn, die imperialistische Aggression gegen gypten und die Tagung der Volkskammer der DDR, Berlin, den 7.11.1956, p. 87. Also SAPMO, DY/30/IV 2/ 5, 574, #9, p. 60, Information ber die Ereignisse in gypten und Ungarn und die eingeleiteten Ma nahmen von den Bezirks- und Kreisleitungen, den 2.11.1956; and SAPMO, DY/30/IV 2/ 5, 574, #10, p. 71, Kurzinformation ber Stimmung und Argumente zu den Ereignissen in gypten und Ungarn, den 3.11.56. British scholar Mark Allinson also mentions the panic buying in response to the Hungarian and Suez crises. See Allinson, Politics and Popular Opinion in East Germany, op. cit., 73. 106 SAPMO DY/30/IV 2/ 5, 574, #7, p. 46, Kurzinformation ber die Ereignisse in Volkspolen und Ungarn, Berlin, den 29.10.56. 107 Ibid. The authors of the report wrote: The insecurity of the people, which is mainly caused by the fear of a new world war, was basically overcome by the announcement of the truce in Egypt. 108 SAPMO DY 30/ IV 2/5, 574, #14, Informationsbericht ber die Stimmung der Bevlkerung zu den letzten Ereignissen in Ungarn, die imperialistische Aggression gegen gypten und die Tagung der Volkskammer der DDR, Berlin, den 9.11.56, 98. 109 This fear does not completely explain the East Germans docility, of course, since similar fears of a third world war prevailed in 1953, when the citizens did rebel. 110 SAPMO DY 30/3660, pp. 89, Lagebericht ber die Situation in Ungarn bis einschlielich Dienstag, den 30. oktober 1956, frh 10 Uhr. Compared to Soviet diplomats, Helmer and the other German diplomats in Budapest reported the events more candidly, pointing out, for example, that the Hungarian crowd in front of the parliament building was peaceful and unarmed when the security police opened fire on it. 111 SAPMO, DY/30/IV 2/ 5, 574, #13, Kurzinformation ber die Stimmung der Bevlkerung zu den letzten Ereignissen in Ungarn, die imperialistische Aggression gegen gypten und die Tagung der Volkskammer der DDR, Berlin, den 7.11.1956, 88. 112 SAPMO DY/30/IV 2/5, 574, #1 Kurzinformation ber Stimmung und Argumente zur Tagung des ZK der Vereinigten Polnischen Arbeiterpartei und zur Lage in Volkspolen, Berlin, den 23.10.56, 7. Das kann ja auch nicht anders sein, denn die rote Diktatur geht ja, nur von Moskau aus und wie sie dort pfeifen, mssen die anderen tanzen.
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tutelage, but Khrushchev explained to Poland that if it no longer wants it, the Soviet military will speak, said a citizen from Magdeburg cynically. 113 This might-makes-right cynicism concerned not only Soviet military power but also the Stasi. Contemporary specialists on the Stasi debate whether the security organization was merely the agent of the SEDs will or was a state -within-astate.114 In 1956, in any case, the Stasis network of informers extended into far more corners of society than did the State Security Authority ( llamvdelmi Hatsg, or VH) in Hungary.115 In contrast to the nazi Gestapo, which had about 65,000 full-time employees, the Stasi employed in a country the size of Tennessee at least 70,000 full-time workers and 300,000 unofficial co-workers. By the 1980s, the number of employees had swelled to 90,000 full-time workers and 500,000 informal co-workers. Apart from the central Berlin office (33,000 employees), each of the 15 Bezirke had a Stasi office of between 1700 and 4000 employees, plus auxiliary units in factories, hospitals, universities and military bases.116 After the June 1953 uprising, the new Stasi chief Wollweber had been instructed to examine which working methods of our security organs must be improved so that in the future the Ministry of State Security will be informed quickly about definite hostile phenomena.117 One improvement must have been the even greater infiltra -tion of youth groups and the prevention of large meetings and demonstrations. On 24 October 1956 officials in the party information sector of the depart-ment of leading organs of the party and mass organizations reported that Security measures have been taken in the districts, counties, and in work places. Party agitators have been organized and taught how to oppose hostile discussions and resolve misunderstandings among the workers. We have taken measures to ensure that information can flow quickly from all areas to the leading party organs. Two days later they stated confidently: All district administrations report that, in spite of widespread discussion, the situation is normal and stable. The party . . . can control the situation at any time.118
113 Ibid. 114 Mike Dennis, The Stasi. Myth and Reality (London 2003). For a recent anecdotal account of Stasi activities based exclusively on interviews, see John O. Koehler, Stasi. The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police (Boulder, CO 1999). For insights from an East German archivist about the witchhunt instigated after the declassification of the Stasi files in the 1990s, see Matthias Wagner, Das StasiSyndrom (Berlin 2001). 115 The State Security Department (llamvdelmi Osztly or VO), which was reorganized in 1948 and renamed the State Security Authority (llamvdelmi Hatsg, or VH) as mentioned above, was reincorporated into the Hungarian Internal Affairs Ministry in the autumn of 1953. The organization was nevertheless still commonly referred to as the VO and its employees the VOs. 116 David P. Conradt, The German Polity (5th edn, New York and London 1993), 16. These figures were slightly less in 1956 than in the 1980s. 117 SAPMO ZPA, DY 30/IV 2/1/170, p. 41. 118 SAPMO DY 301 IV 2/5/574, Abt. Leitende Organe der Partei und Massenorganisationen, #5, Kurzinformation zu den Ereignissen in Volkspolen und der Ungarischen Volksrepublik, Berlin, den 26.10.1956, 25.
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Decisive workers in Jena prevented students from staging a rally. 119 Thus, whereas in Hungary the revolution began when the student demonstration on 23 October turned violent (due to the VH agents precipitative gunfire), East Germans never got a chance to assemble at all. Those who did, like the students at Humboldt University, were quelled by the battle groups Ulbricht deployed. Another reason why Ulbricht was able to prevent a rebellion and stay in power in East Germany relates to censorship. While political prisoners released in Hungary in the months after Stalins death and Khrushchevs Secret Speech resumed careers in journalism or politics and grew increasingly vocal in society, released prisoners in East Germany were closely monitored. News-papers remained highly censored. A great many East Germans simply did not know what was happening in Hungary, so they could not stage rebellions to protest against the Soviet invasion:
District leaderships report that although the discussion has increased in the last few days, there is no evidence of acts of provocation. The discussion is focused mostly on the events in Poland, due to the fact that the events in Hungary are not widely known among the masses, especially in work places.120
The population also knew little about the events in Poland, although Heymann kept the Foreign Ministry closely informed.121 The regional adminis-tration in Potsdam, for example, reported the indignation of people in Brandenburg and Kyritz. The comrades are demanding from the Central Committee basic information, asking questions such as: Why didnt we receive excerpts from Co mrade Gomu*kas speech? and Why do you inform us so poorly? ( Warum informiert ihr uns so schlect?).122 By January 1957, ironically, a lack of paper hindered the SED leaderships efforts to inform the populace via the so -called Hungarian white book.123 A fourth factor concerns the East Germans and Hungarians contrasting views of Poland. As mentioned earlier, the Hungarian demonstrators initial intentions on that fateful day of 23 October had been to express their admira-tion for the Poles for having successfully defied the Kremlin and elected
119 SAPMO DY 30/ IV 2/5, 574, p. 120, Informationsbericht, Berlin, den 28.11. 1956. 120 SAPMO DY 301 IV 2/5/574, #5, Kurzinformation zu den Ereignissen in Volkspolen und der Ungarischen Volksrepublik, Berlin, 24.10.1956, 16. Emphasis added. The district leaders observation is interesting. One would think that the East Germans were better informed than citi-zens in other peoples democracies, given their ready access to RIAS (Radio in the American Sector). 121 See, for example, Heymanns detailed reports on Gomu *kas speech at the eighth plenum, changes in government appointments, Polish position on the German question, views on Hungary, division within the Catholic movement, etc. in SAPMO DY 30/3652, Zur Lage in Polen, Warschau, den 15.11.1956, and SAPMO DY 30/3652, VIII Plenum der PZPR, Warschau, den 21.11.1956. 122 123 Ibid. SAPMO DY 30/3660, p. 3, Bericht ber die Unterredungen in Budapest am 8. u. 9.1.1957.
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W*adys*aw Gomu*ka as First Secretary. The two non-Germanic countries, Hungary and Poland, have historically enjoyed a somewhat special relation -ship, made possible perhaps by the lack of any direct, bilateral war in their past, a lack of common borders and thus the absence of territorial disputes. The influence of the absence of common borders as a factor strengthening relations between countries is best expressed by an anonymous proverb dating from the time of Charlemagne in 789 AD. If a Frank is your friend, then he is clearly not your neighbour. In addition, Poland and Hungary had several common monarchs and heroes,124 such as Stefan Batory (Istvn Bthory), General Jzef Bem, and the poet Sndor Pet~fi.125 By contrast, despite the East German elites excitement about the events in Poland, the East German population as a whole had no such compulsion to pay tribute to their eastern neighbour, even had they known what was going on. This is perhaps not surprising, given the history of troublesome Polish-East German relations that Sheldon Anderson and others have documented. 126 (Just three years earlier, however, the June 1953 uprising had fuelled various rumours among the Polish people especially in the former German territo-ries and prompted Polish security forces to take extra precautions.)127 On the one hand, SED party members, perhaps intuiting that their friendly interlocutor was a Stasi IM, made correct statements, such as: I see the whole situation in Poland as the work of agents, but what I cant understand is how such ink-slingers (Schreiberlinge) got the opportunity to publish these things in the press and These are the same intrigues (Machenschaften) which the enemy tried in the GDR, especially in the Magdeburg factories.128 Comments from the general population, however, were more frank. Several
124 Through strategic marriages with Hungarians, the Polish monarchy was able to extend its power and territory, beginning in the 14th century, with the Polish king Casimir III who passed the crown to his nephew, Louis I of Hungary, and his daughter Jadwiga then married the Duke of Lithuania, thus beginning 187 years of joint PolishLithuanian rule. 125 Although his family was Slovak, Sndor Pet~fi is arguably the most famous Hungarian poet. He became the aide-de-camp of General Jzsef Bem, then head of the Transylvanian army, who had great affection for the somewhat unsoldierly but enthusiastic poet. Pet ~fi played a lead-ing role in the literary life of the period preceding the outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. He disappeared during the Battle of Segesvr on 31 July 1849. 126 For an overview of contentious issues in Polish East German relations based on new archival documents, see Sheldon Andersons above-mentioned book, A Cold War in the Soviet Bloc. Reflecting Ulbrichts fear of an East German October, Ulbricht also accused Harich of conspiring with Polish intellectuals. 127 See CA MSWiA, akta normatywne, 1953. Published in Polish in Andrzej Malkiewicz and Krzysztof Ruchniewicz, Pierwszy Znak SolidarnoNi (Wroclaw 1998), 1401, and in English in Ostermann, Uprising in East Germany, 1953 (Budapest 2001), document #50, 2412. 128 SAPMO DY/30/IV 2/5, 574, #1, Kurzinformation ber Stimmung und Argumente zur Tagung des ZK der Vereinigten Polnischen Arbeiterpartei und zur Lage in Volkspolen, Berlin, den 23.10.56, 6 and 5 respectively. The last comment refers to the worker unrest in June 1953. Magdeburg was one of the key industrial regions where revolts erupted in machine plants. Other rebellions broke out in the Berlin electrical engineering plant, Leuna chemical plant, and Zeiss optical works. More than 250 towns in the GDR were affected.
500
citizens made remarks such as: The trouble in Poland will come to us, too. ( So wie in Polen, so mte es auch bei uns kommen.)129 Others construed the events in Poland in selfish terms, as an opportunity to retrieve lost real estate: If Poland now becomes free, we can all go home. The OderNeisse border will no longer need to be discussed. The ne w Polish government will negotiate with West Germany about the return to Germany of the eastern territories. The government of the Peoples Republic of Poland is not putting any money into the former German territories because the question of the border has not been clarified. Another citizen reasoned: if the Saar territory was returned to Germany, why shouldnt the territories on the other side of the Oder Neisse also be returned? Still more clever was the argument from a citizen in Jena: Lenin said never to annex foreign territory. Stalin was the one who crossed the OderNeisse border. The Soviet Union and Poland are the countries that took German territory for themselves after the second world war.130 These citizens were referring to Lower Silesia, formerly Upper Silesia (Opole/Oppeln Silesia), eastern Pomerania, eastern Brandenberg and the southern portion of East Prussia. 131 Fifth, many citizens were simply too preoccupied with economic issues to care about foreign policy. An analysis of 44 strikes between April and October 1956 revealed that high work norms and low wages annoyed GDR workers the most. 132 They also recognized the role that the low standards of living played in the Polish unrest. Comrades from Leipzig remarked: The popula -tion of Poland is very poor and cannot even buy necessities, hence the indigna-tion of the people.133 Of course, people in Hungary and other peoples dem-ocracies were also preoccupied with economic problems, but still rebelled. The difference in the East German case is that Ulbricht recognized the influence of economic discomfort on citizens behaviour and, unlike the Hungarian leaders, announced a pension increase (Rentenerhhung) similar to the one initiated after the June 1953 uprising, the introduction of a 45-hour working week and a bonus system. This served as a useful diversion and dom-inated everyday conversations.134 One informer wrote on 7 November 1956:
129 SAPMO DY/30/IV 2/5, 574, #1, Kurzinformation ber Stimmung und Argumente zur Tagung des ZK der Vereinigten Polnischen Arbeiterpartei und zur Lage in Volkspolen, Berlin, den 23.10.56, 8. 130 SAPMO DY 301 IV 2/5/574, #5, Kurzinformation zu den Ereignissen in Volkspolen und der Ungarischen Volksrepublik, Berlin, 24.10.1956, 20. Also SAPMO DY 30/ IV 2/5, 574, p. 116, Informationsbericht, Berlin, den 28.11. 1956. 131 Norman Naimark, Fires of Hatred. Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth Century Europe (Cambridge and London 2001), 131. 132 Dennis, The Rise and Fall of the German Democratic Republic, op. cit., 80. 133 SAPMO DY/30/IV 2/5, 574, #1 Kurzinformation ber Stimmung und Argumente zur Tagung des ZK der Vereinigten Polnischen Arbeiterpartei und zur Lage in Volkspolen, Berlin, den 23.10.56, 3. 134 SAPMO DY 30/ IV 2/5, 574, p. 119, Informationsbericht, Berlin, den 28.11. 1956. The author of this document Scholz proudly reported that the pension increases contradicted earlier prophesies by RIAS that any increase would be miniscule. The pension increase in effect pulled the rug out from under the opponents (ein breiter Boden fr ihre Whlarbeit entzogen wurde).
501
The people mostly discussed the increase in the old age pension, the introduc -tion of the 45-hour working week and the adjusted bonus system.135 More astute individuals called these measures what they were bribes. They increased the old age pension so that we wont have the same situation here as in Hungary, a citizen from Magdeburg said.136 The less critical masses per-haps hesitated to revolt for fear that Ulbricht would reverse these economic reforms. Indeed, the Poles were responsible in a sense for some of the economic hardships that East Germany notoriously deficient in raw materials was experiencing. In the summer of 1956, the Poles suddenly stopped shipping coal and other basic goods due to their own workers strikes. The Polish Sejm could not approve the new Five Year Plan until the spring of 1957, further compli-cating PolishEast German trade negotiations.137 As a consequence of the shortages, the SEDs twenty-eighth plenum was postponed twice in June and July while the SED leadership travelled to Moscow to ask for economic aid.138 By 30 October 1956, however, after Gomu*ka replaced Ochab as First Secretary, Jaroszewicz (Polish Deputy Prime Minister) reported to Heymann that he could count on higher shipments of coal in the near future.139 Polish officials successfully negotiated with their Soviet counterparts the next month (1519 November) to rescind the treaty of 16 August 1955 obligating Poland to ship coal to the USSR at artificially low prices. Pointing out that the current coal problem had resulted from this unequal arrangement, the Poles persuaded the Russians to compensate them for these losses by cancelling all debts that Poland had incurred as a result of Soviet credit guarantees (about two million roubles).140
135 SAPMO, DY/30/IV 2/ 5, 574, #13, Kurzinformation ber die Stimmung der Bevlkerung zu den letzten Ereignissen in Ungarn, die imperialistische Aggression gegen gypten und die Tagung der Volkskammer der DDR, Berlin, den 7.11.1956, 97. 136 SAPMO DY 30/ IV 2/5, 574, #14, Informationsbericht ber die Stimmung der Bevlkerung zu den letzten Ereignissen in Ungarn, die imperialistische Aggression gegen gypten und die Tagung der Volkskammer der DDR, Berlin, den 9.11.56, 100. 137 SAPMO DY 30/3652, p. 2, Lage in der VRP, Heymann, Botschafter der DDR in der Volksrepublik Polen, Warschau, den 1.11.1956. 138 Schirdewan, Aufstand gegen Ulbricht, op. cit., 87. It was postponed twice, first from 2022 June to 1820 July, then again from 1820 July to 2729 July. See also Ulbrichts speech about economic difficulties delivered at the twenty-eighth plenum on 27 July 1956. SAPMO, Zentrales Parteiarchiv (ZPA), DY 30/IV 2/1/161, Protokoll des 28. Plenums des Zentralkomitees der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands, 27 Juli 1956. 139 SAPMO DY 30/3652, p. 3, Zur Lage in der VRP, Heymann, Botschafter der DDR in der Volksrepublik Polen, Warschau, an das Ministerium fr Auswrtige Angelegenheiten, Berlin, den 30.10.1956. The next day another diplomat, (Lugenheim) in Warsaw told the German Foreign Ministry that the Wujek Coal mine had produced 6248 more tons of coal than planned and that the coal deficiency had been reduced in just a few days from 10,000 to 8,000 tons. SAPMO DY/30/3652, p. 1, Kurzinformation, Warschau, den 31.10.1956. 140 AA, A17069, fiche 1, ber die polnischsowjetischen Verhandlungen vom 15.18. November 1956 in Moskau, 23.
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To sum up, archival evidence suggests that Ulbricht remained in power in the 1950s and prevented a mass revolt in East Germany due to a combination of factors. Khrushchev and his colleagues needed a strong leader to hold the fort in this major Cold War chokepoint. They did not need to replace Ulbricht to improve SovietYugoslav relations as with Rkosi. Ulbricht was palatable as a non-Jew and had a tenacious will to survive politically. The Soviet ambassador to the GDR supported Ulbricht, unlike the ambassador to Hungary vis--vis Rkosi. The memory of the June 1953 revolt and Soviet repression haunted Ulbricht and deterred the masses. The haemorrhaging from the SED regime of young refugees most critical of it permitted Ulbricht to delay extensive reforms. Critics of Ulbricht within the SED lacked the will and political skills to unseat him. They had no strong moral issue to use against Ulbricht, who, despite his powerful impulse to punish that Nietzsche warned against, had nevertheless not carried out Rkosis type of massive blood purge. The intelli-gentsia was heavily censored, naive, unorganized and isolated from opposition members in the Politburo. Ordinary citizens were deterred by fears of a third world war, preoccupation with economic concerns, resignation about Soviet military power and fear of the pervasive Stasi. Finally, due to the territorial dispute and absence of strong solidarity with Poland akin to Hungarys, the population was disinclined to pay mass tribute the way the Hungarians had on 23 October. The most influential factor in Ulbrichts survival was probably Soviet support. Ordinarily, influenced by the Poles and Hungarians, the East Germans probably would have tried to oust him in 1956. However, historical and domestic factors intervened in the GDR case, especially the aborted June 1953 uprising and resulting fatalism vis--vis the Soviet military and Stasi. Thus, despite their relative economic deprivation and distrust of the punitive Ulbricht, the East Germans did not rise up against him and the SED regime.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Granville, Johanna. The First Domino: International Decision Making in the 1956 Hungarian Crisis. College Station, Texas: Texas A & M University Press, 2004. Harich, Wolfgang. Keine Schwierigkeiten mit der Wahrheit: zur nationalkommunistischen Opposition 1956 in der DDR. Berlin: Dietz, 1993. Hft, Brigitte. Der Prozess gegen Walter Janka und andere: eine Dokumentation. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1990. Jessen, Ralph. Akademische Elite und kommunistische Diktatur : die ostdeutsche Hochschullehrerschaft in der Ulbricht-ra. Gttingen:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999.
Kieslich, Lothar. Kommunisten gegen Kommunisten: die Intellektuellenpolitik der SED im Umfeld des XX. Parteitags der KPdSU und des Ungarn-Aufstands.
Giessen: Kletsmeier, 1998.

Kolwalczuk, Ilko-Sascha. Die Niederschlagung der Opposition an der Veterinrmedizinischen Fakultt der Humboldt-Universitt zu Berlin in der Krise 1956/57: Dokumentation einer Pressekonferenz des Ministeriums fr Staatssicherheit im Mai 1957. Berlin: Berliner Landesbeauftragte fr die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der Ehemaligen DDR, 1997 .

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Ulbricht in October 1956: Survival of the Spitzbart during Destalinization

Journal of Contemporary History Vol 41 No 3

Granville: Ulbricht in October 1956

Journal of Contemporary History Vol 41 No 3

Granville: Ulbricht in October 1956

Journal of Contemporary History Vol 41 No 3

Granville: Ulbricht in October 1956

Journal of Contemporary History Vol 41 No 3

Granville: Ulbricht in October 1956

Journal of Contemporary History Vol 41 No 3

Granville: Ulbricht in October 1956

Journal of Contemporary History Vol 41 No 3

Granville: Ulbricht in October 1956

Journal of Contemporary History Vol 41 No 3

Granville: Ulbricht in October 1956

Journal of Contemporary History Vol 41 No 3

Granville: Ulbricht in October 1956

Journal of Contemporary History Vol 41 No 3

Granville: Ulbricht in October 1956

Journal of Contemporary History Vol 41 No 3

Granville: Ulbricht in October 1956

Journal of Contemporary History Vol 41 No 3

Granville: Ulbricht in October 1956

Journal of Contemporary History Vol 41 No 3

Granville: Ulbricht in October 1956

Journal of Contemporary History Vol 41 No 3

Giessen: Kletsmeier, 1998.

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